Collapsible easel

ABSTRACT

A collapsible easel having a frame into which two of its legs telescopically contract, a third leg pivotally attached to the easel whereby the frame may be tiltably supported at various angles both forwardly and rearwardly, a reversible panel having magnetic cork, slate, or other material on its opposite faces detachably mounted on the frame, external channels in the sides of the frame into which auxiliary structural members may be intermatingly attached, one such structural member being in the form of extension arms with paper chart clips along their extent, the vertical arms also having hooks at their tops to which a projection screen may be attached and due to the versatility provided by the frame being adjustable to both forward and rearward angles, the screen may be used in conjunction with movie, slide and overhead projectors.

United States Patent [72} Inventor Percy Frederick Albee, Jr.

Harrington, RJ.

[21] Appl. No 15,365

[22] Filed Mar. 2, 1970 [45] Patented Nov. 30, 1971 [73] Assignee Q-Panel Corporation [54] COLLAPSIBLE EASEL 6 Claims, 14 Drawing Figs.

52] user 248/454,

248/463 511 men A47gl/24 so FieldofSearch 248/455.

460,454,451-453, 188.5; 312/23l;40/152.l, 125 H, 156; 160/351, 24.135

3,132,439 5/1964 MCGill a 1. 312/231 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,112,311 11/1955 France 1 1 A 40/156 Primary Examiner-William H. Schultz Allorney Barlow & Barlow ABSTRACT: A collapsible easel having a frame into which two of its legs telescopically contract, a third leg pivotally attached to the easel whereby the frame may be tiltably supported at various angles both forwardly and rearwardly, a reversible panel having magnetic cork,slate, or other material on its opposite faces detachably mounted on the frame, external channels in the sides of the frame into which auxiliary structural members may be intermatingly attached. one such structural member being in the form of extension arms with paper chart clips along their extent, the vertical arms also having hooks at their tops to which a projection screen may be attached and due to the versatility provided by the frame being adjustable to both forward and rearward angles. the screen may be used in conjunction with movie. slide and overhead projectors.

PATENTED HUV30 as?! SHEET 1 OF 3 I NVENTOR.

PERCY FREDERICK ALBEE,JR.

PATENTEIJ NDV30I97I 3,523 691 sum 2 or 3 INVENTOR.

PERCY FREDERICK ALBEE,JR.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION been toward the use of more and more visual aids for instructional or lecturing purposes. Along with this growing maze of individual devices to use has come a decrease in the available space to store these devices and an insufficiency of funds to buy one of each of every kind. What has been needed has been a device that is collapsible and thereby easily movable from room to room or from building to building. Also a need has arisen to provide a device by whose unique structural design a multiplicity of functions can be performed and whose versatility would do away with the need for several individual devices each capable of performing only a limited number of functions thereby cutting down financial expenditures and storage space requirements.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention by virtue of its unique structure provides an easel having limitless versatility. It is collapsible to provide for ease in moving from place to place. All of its auxiliary members may remain attached while in the collapsible state further easing the problem of taking along the accessories when moving the easel.

The adjustability of it supporting legs allows the frame to be positioned angularly through a wide degree of angles both forwardly and rearwardly. The frame provides structure to detachably mount a panel which may be reversible and have its opposite faces covered with magnetic, cork, slate, or other material. With the use of auxiliary structural members such as the extension arms, the easel may be converted into a projection screen support for viewing movie pictures or slides or for viewing material displayed by an overhead projector. The telescoping extension arms being extendable and lockable at varying lengths give a wide range to the size of the screens with which the easel may be used.

Also by use of an interconnecting member two or more frames may be attached in modular form. These and other advantages will be evident from a further reading of the specification.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the easel showing some of the auxiliary structural members in exploded view;

FIG. 2 is a side elevation of the easel as used with a projection screen for viewing movie pictures or slides;

FIG. 3 is a side elevation of the ease] as used with a projection screen for viewing material projected by an overhead pro- 'ector;

J FIG. 4 is a side elevation of the frame with an extension arm intermeshingly engaged with the frame with portions broken away.

FIG. 5 is a section taken along line 5-5 of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a section taken along line 6-6 of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a section taken along line 7-7 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 8 is a section taken along line 8-8 of FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a front elevation of a portion of the frame and intermeshing leg with areas broken away;

FIG. 10 is a detached side elevation view of a coupling unit having areas broken away;

F IG. 1] is a front elevation of the supporting leg unit;

FIG. 12 is a fragmental view of the telescoping center leg with the position locking mechanism structure broken away for illustration;

FIG. 13 is an illustration of an alternative embodiment showing how a cross section would look when two frames would be laterally attached together by an interconnecting member; and

FIG. 14 is a section taken along line 14-14 of FIG. I.

DESCRIPT ION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to FIG. I, the present invention is illustrated as to how it is used with the panel 20 alone. The easel itself is generally designated by the numeral 18. A major component of the easel is the frame 21. It is comprised of top member 22, bottom member 24, and identical side members 26. Each of the aforesaid members has a recessed flange 23, 25 and 27 respectively into which the panel 20 is detachable secured. The nature of attaching the panel will be described later in conjunction with the explaining of FIGS. 7 and 8. The panel itself is reversible and can be covered on opposite faces with magnetic, cork, slate or other suitable materials to give versatility to the panel itself. The panel when in place also gives rigidity to the frame 21.

Shown also in FIG. 1 are auxiliary structural members such as extension arms 30, container tray 60 and additional chartsupporting members 50. Mounted on the front face of the supporting members 50 are spring clips 52 which are used to clasp materials to be hung from the top. The supporting members have a mating structure to be slidingly engaged in the external channel of the top member. The configuration of the external channel 42 of top member 22 is similar to the external channel 28 of the side members 26 and will be best understood later when FIG. 5 is discussed. Also the structure of the supporting members 50 which mates with the external channel of top member 22 is similar to that of the extension arrn member 30 and will also be best described later in the discussion of FIG. 5.

The extension arms 30 also have spring clips 31 mounted atop their front faces. As best seen in FIGS. 2, 3 and 4 the top of the extension arms have folding bracket arms 32 hinged thereto with finger hooks 33 at their tips. The hooks 33 register in slots on the back of top rail 56 which is attached to the upper edge of screen 55. The extension arms 30 are slidably adjusted in external channels 28 and may be positioned at different points along the side members 26 by means of spring-actuated locking pins 37 that fit in holes 38 along the length of the side members. The extension arms 30 are also slidably adjusted in external channels 42 along the top of the frame to permit papers, etc., to be hung from the paper chart clips 31.

The spring-actuated locking pin mechanism of the extension arm is shown in the cross-sectional views of FIGS. 5 and 6 and the intermating relationship between the extension arms and the side members is also illustrated. As seen in these figures the inside of the side frame members form an internal channel 40 into which the supporting legs telescopically contract. The external channel 28 matingly receives tongue 34 with a bead 35 at its tip and a nylon bearing sleeve 36 fits over the bead to reduce friction between the bead and the channel 28 when slidingly adjusted. As seen in FIG. 6, the locking pin 37 is attached at its base to leaf spring 44 which in turn is attached to one end of rocker am 46. At the other end of the leaf spring 44, an L-shaped bracket is mounted thereon and the combination fixedly secured to the underlying structure of extension arm 30. To operate the locking mechanism it is merely necessary to press on the free end of the rocker arm 46 causing its opposite end to pivot upwardly around the fulcrum point 49 of the bracket and cause the pin to disengage from the hole 38. The extension arm is than free to slidingly travel in channel 28.

Looking at FIG. 2, the ease] is illustrated as it would be used to support a screen 55 to be used in viewing movie pictures or slides. The extension arms are shown in their contracted position but they could be extended to various lengths to support larger screens. The lower rail 57 is illustrated as secured on hook 58, but should it be desired to elevate a screen by sliding arms 30 upward, hooks 59 may be used. In FIG. 3 the middle supporting leg has been pivoted forwardly to adapt the screen to the viewing of material placed upon an overhead projector and avoid keystoning."

A cross section of the detachable tray container 60 is illustrated in FIG. 14. Along the back wall of the container a pair of pins 61 having oversized heads 62 are attached. These are engageable in the holes l9 along the front surface of bottom member 24. The bottoms of the container and the bottom member 24 are flush when attached so that arm 63 may be pivoted under the bottom edge of bottom member to lock the container in position. The co'ver 64. is slidably engaged in channels 65-and nylon bearing sleeves 66 on the beads 67 reduce friction therebetween. The shape of the cover is such that its top surface may also be used as a tray without fear of deposited items rolling off.

i The nature of attaching the supporting legs 88 to the frame 22 and how they telescopically slide within the side members 26'is best illustratedin FIGS. 9 and 10. Only one of the side members will be described since they both have identical construction. The leg 88 is inserted into' the internal channel 40. Up a short distance from the bottom of the side member 26 a plurality of fixed nylon bearing surfaces 70 are attached to the inner surfaces of channel 40 and these provide a first frictionreducing contact area. These surfaces 70 also function as a stop to limit the downwardmovement of coupling unit 80. Coupling unit 80 has itself a plurality of nylon bearing surfaces 81 mounted along its outer walls to provide asecond frictionreducing contact area which-prevents the legs from jamming when telescopically contracted within the frame. The coupling unit normally remains connected to the leg 88 in the manner to be described except whenthe easel is disassembled. A leaf spring 82 has pins 84 and 85 attached thereto and is fixedly v secured to the coupling unit at point 86. To attach leg 88 to the coupling unit 80, pin 85 is depressed and the coupling unit is telescopically inserted into the leg until pin 84 aligns with hole 87. Upon releasing the pressure on pin 85 the two parts are coupled togetheri Leg 88 is locked in position to the side member 26 by a pin 7! engaging one of the holes 72 on the leg. To disengage pin 7], a button 73 on lever arm 74 is pushed inwardly causing the end of the spring 75 to which the pin 71 is attached to rise outwardly pulling the pin out of hole 72. By disengaging the pins 71 from the upper holes 72, the legs may be made to telescope within the side members substantially the length of the internal channels 40 and thereby provide a compact easel for carrying or storing purposes as shown in phantom in FIG. 1 1.

The structure for angularly adjusting the easel is illustrated in FIGS. 11 and 12. A tubular transverse member 92 having trunnions mounted in its ends is pivotally joumaled in bracket arms 94 attached to and extending rearwardly from the legs 88. The middle adjustable supporting leg is generally designated numeral 90 and is comprised of tubular member 95 which is attached at one of its ends to the center of transverse member 92 and extension leg 96 which telescopes within tubular member 95. The middle supporting leg is therefore pivotable about the trunnions 93 forwardly and rearwardly and may be positioned at various angles by telescopically contracting leg 96 with its slot 97 into tubular member 95 and tightening position-locking screw 98 into the threaded hole 99 in clamping sleeve 100. A guide sleeve 102 having an internal bearing surface operates to make the pivotal travel of the middle leg 90 smoother by'means of braces 104 having their ends pivotally attached at one end to studs 105 on the guide sleeve 102 and at their other ends to pins 106 attached to brackets 108 mounted on legs 88. The leg-connecting member 89 connects the two legs 88 resulting in a stable support structure.

For an understanding of-how the panel 20 is removably attached, FIGS. 1, 7, and 8 should be referred to. The panel has a plurality of holesin its bottom that align with pins 120 extending upwardly from the bottom member 24. The top of the panel also has a plurality of holes which align with springdepressible pins 130. Spring 132 is fixedly attached at its one end to a wall of the frame s top member22and at its other end to actuating arm 136 such that when the arm 136 is lifted upwardly the pin 130 attached to the spring is taken out of engagement with a hole in the top of the panel. A panel may therefore be reversed or removed in a matter of seconds;

Mentioned earlier was the fact that the frame could be attached to other similar frames in a modular construction unit.

FIG. 13 discloses the use of an interconnecting member to produce this result. The interconnecting member would have diametrically opposed identical beads with nylon bearing sleeves 154 thereon and would mate with the external channels 28 of identical frame units 22.

I claim:

1. A collapsible easel comprising:

a. a frame having at least four sides b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels,

e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame,

f. said frame having means for detachable supporting a panel board thereto, 7

g. a pair of coupler units, each one freely slidable in the internal channel formed in the respective side members of the frame, the coupler units having nonmetallic bearing surfaces attached to their lateral surfaces to reduce friction caused by the coupler units sliding in said internal channels, means on the internally formed channels to prevent the coupling units from dropping out of the lower ends of said channels, means to detachably secure the coupling units to the top ends of the respective support legs.

2. A collapsible easel comprising:

a. a frame having at least four sides,

b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels,

c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels,

d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels,

e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame comprising means for pivoting said third support leg from a position behind said frame to a position forward of the frame whereby the easel may be supported at various angles both forwardly and rearwardly,

f. said frame having means for detachably supporting a panel board thereto,

3. A collapsible easel comprising:

a. a frame having at least four sides,

b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels,

c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels,

d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels,

es a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame,

f. said frame having means for detachably supporting a panel board thereto.

g. externally formed channels on said side members of the frame in which auxiliary structural members may be slidingly attached.

4. As easel as recited in claim 3 having an interconnecting member slidingly engaged in the externally formed channel of one of said side members, said interconnecting member having identical diametrically opposed structure whereby a second frame having identically formed external channels may be slidingly attached to said interconnecting member to form a modular structure.

5. An easel as recited in claim 3 having auxiliary structural members slidingly attached in the external channels of said side members, said auxiliary structural members being in the form of extension arms with structure that mates with said channels and having means at their top to detachably secure a projection screen thereon for viewing purposes.

6 A collapsible easel comprising:

a. a frame having at least four sides,

b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels,

0. the top of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed 

1. A collapsible easel comprising: a. a frame having at least four sides b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels, e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame, f. said frame having means for detachable supporting a panel board thereto, g. a pair of coupler units, each one freely slidable in the internal channel formed in the respective side members of the frame, the coupler units having nonmetallic bearing surfaces attached to their lateral surfaces to reduce friction caused by the coupler units sliding in said internal channels, means on the internally formed channels to prevent the coupling units from dropping out of the lower ends of said channels, means to detachably secure the coupling units to the top ends of the respective support legs.
 2. A collapsible easel comprising: a. a frame having at least four sides, b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels, c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels, d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels, e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame comprising means for pivoting said thirD support leg from a position behind said frame to a position forward of the frame whereby the easel may be supported at various angles both forwardly and rearwardly, f. said frame having means for detachably supporting a panel board thereto,
 3. A collapsible easel comprising: a. a frame having at least four sides, b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels, c. the tops of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels, d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels, e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame, f. said frame having means for detachably supporting a panel board thereto. g. externally formed channels on said side members of the frame in which auxiliary structural members may be slidingly attached.
 4. As easel as recited in claim 3 having an interconnecting member slidingly engaged in the externally formed channel of one of said side members, said interconnecting member having identical diametrically opposed structure whereby a second frame having identically formed external channels may be slidingly attached to said interconnecting member to form a modular structure.
 5. An easel as recited in claim 3 having auxiliary structural members slidingly attached in the external channels of said side members, said auxiliary structural members being in the form of extension arms with structure that mates with said channels and having means at their top to detachably secure a projection screen thereon for viewing purposes.
 6. A collapsible easel comprising: a. a frame having at least four sides, b. two of the side members of the frame having internally formed channels, c. the top of a pair of support legs for the frame being telescopically mounted in the respective internally formed channels whereby said support legs can be telescopically contracted into said side members substantially the length of said internally formed channels, d. means for locking said legs at predetermined telescopic positions in said internally formed channels, e. a third support leg having means attaching it to the easel structure to form a tripod support for the frame, f. said frame having means for detachably supporting a panel board thereto, g. an externally formed channel formed on the top member of said frame whereby auxiliary structural members may be slidingly attached. 